Arsenal

When they scored a last minute winner against Burnley at the weekend, Arsenal posted this slightly disconcerting image of scorer Laurent Koscielny. GIFs are a recurring theme throughout this article, and some are more well-done than others.

It’s definitely eye-catching, however. The flashing “goal” and changing colours hold your attention, although I’m not 100% convinced by the slow zoom on his face.

There’s some accompanying text too, which lets us know the score and the minute of the game, however they haven’t opted to use the league’s official hashtag (which doesn’t include the v). Worth noting that this didn’t go live straight away: it came one minute after the account officially announced the goal with a slightly more low key “YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!”

Burnley

Burnley have opted for a GIF: theirs also containing the name and an image of the goalscorer. There’s something vaguely Powerpoint-like about the paths the words take, however they don’t give any mention to their opponents or use the Premier League’s official hashtag.

Chelsea

For the fourth time, there’s no mention of the league hashtag. Chelsea’s more unconventional approach to announcing the goal doesn’t even include the minute of the match it was scored in, getting straight to the point with Diego Costa’s name and a celebratory GIF of the goalscorer.

Crystal Palace

Palace have clearly incorporated the team’s colours – and done so quite effectively – in a non-specific GIF that they use to announce each goal. There’s no personalisation going on here, and their accompanying text also lacks context, the minute, opponent, and – something of a theme – a proper hashtag.

Leicester City

Now we’re rolling: another official hashtag. It takes two tweets for the league champions to tell us everything about the goal, however we’re lacking any media to accompany it.

Leicester are also one of the clubs who don’t just tweet “Goal!” when a shot goes in before expanding on it afterwards – understanding that providing information is just as important as notifying people.

GOAL! Absolutely incredible strike from Gray finds the top corner to pull one back for the Foxes. It's now 4-1 to the hosts. #MnuLei

Liverpool

In terms of information for fans though, there’s no mention of what minute the goal is scored in, or their opponents. The only included hashtag is in the GIF, along with the club’s URL. It’s the text that tells us what we need to know here.

Manchester City

It probably comes as no surprise that Man City’s effort is the most rounded that we’ve had so far. There’s a celebratory picture of the goalscorer, their number, name, the minute they’ve scored in, the score, the league logo, a hashtag (not official, but included), and Sterling’s autograph as well (an interesting but nice touch).

The Manchester club are one of a small number of teams who personalise these on the fly. Obviously you can’t have ones prepared for every score, goalscorer, and minute, instead they’re turned round very quickly from pre-designed templates.

City prove that GIFs aren’t always the only way of including everything. This manages to not be overcrowded while at the same time telling us everything we need to know.

Manchester United

Back to GIFs now. Man United’s media is another announcement lacking any kind of personalisation other than the name of the goalscorer, but we do get that added context in the accompanying text. They tick boxes for everything really: minute, score, goalscorer (complete with handle), and the official hashtag as well.

Stoke City

Considering the circumstances – an 81st minute equaliser at Old Trafford – there’s a distinct lack of emotion in Stoke’s goal tweet. No media, no fanfare, just a matter of fact description and the updated score.

81: GOAL Stoke get the equaliser after Allen pounces on some pinball in the United area #ManU 1-1 #SCFC

Sunderland

Generic goal graphic, but at least they’ve used the official Premier League hashtag. Goalscorer Van Aanholt’s account is mentioned, but no mention of what minute the goal was scored (that comes in a follow-up). Always good to have a bit of information about the goal though.

Swansea City

I’m a big fan of Swansea’s GIF here – particularly the wave effect behind the Swans’ logo. We don’t get any hashtags, but we do get some nice emotive exclamation marks and a mention of Fer’s account. This serves more as announcement of a goal and a very quick way to get the news out before backing it up with more context.

Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs are another club who have made an effort to have a degree of personalisation in their goal tweet. The GIF just tells us that Dele Alli has scored, and we get the rest of the information we need in the text – all except the minute, that is.

Tottenham also include their own hashtag rather than the league’s own – a bit of a theme among clubs.

West Bromwich Albion

Novel approach from WBA: no text, just an image telling us Nacer Chadli has scored (the number relates to his squad number). It’s a bit basic to be honest, and the icons next to the club badge seem a bit redundant. Again they’re going for their own team hashtag rather than the match one.

Final thoughts

When it comes to goals, media feature prominently: 12 of the 20 teams employ GIFs when their side score, and a further four go with static images.

Surprisingly there’s not much love the Premier League’s official hashtags, with only five instances of them occurring in goal announcements (they could appear elsewhere in updates, of course). It seems like the perfect time to use a hashtag that is promoted across the world to fans, and a bit of a missed opportunity.